


wax wings and drowned gods

by IndustryRiverValley



Series: good faith [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Derse/Prospit Royalty, Alternate Universe - Magic, Multi, Theocracy, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2019-07-14 18:44:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16046357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IndustryRiverValley/pseuds/IndustryRiverValley
Summary: For centuries, the Kingdoms of Derse and Prospit had squabbles back and forth, but political unrest and changing times caused Civil War to erupt in Derse. The Royals and court are thought to be long dead, but when there's reason to doubt that, there's a brave new world over the horizon.





	1. who's there?

**Author's Note:**

> I actually put a lot of work into this, I really hope y'all like this, and I'll try and update this as often as possible but I'm an employed highschooler so that might not happen often lmao.

Your day starts early, as always. You run on approximately three hours of sleep a night, even though your day technically ends after your dusk patrol around the outside of the palace grounds, work as Captain of the Royal Guard of the Kingdom of Prospit is never done. Well at least, its never done right by anyone other than yourself. Your name is Karkat Vantas, and this is your daily life. You sigh, turning out of bed and standing by your bedside. You pull out the matches from the drawer, they’re old things. You’d be surprised if they could catch fire at all. You strike one regardless. To your surprise, it catches fire on the first strike.

“Well then,” you mutter “must be my lucky day.”

You light the candles on your bedside table and pull your nighttime shift over your head. From then on, your morning dressing goes as normal. Daytime shift, drawers, socks, pants, undershirt, jerkin, gloves, boots, scarf, cape, broach. All pulled on and put in place in a record seventeen minutes. You walk down the hall and down the front winding staircase. It’s a cold morning, cold for Prospit that is. It’s not even cold enough for the dew to frost over the window, but that won’t stop John and Jade from complaining about what an ungodly crime it is that it's just above freezing. Well, you only have to wait about an hour to hear from John and who knows when you’ll hear from Jade, with a generous estimate she’ll wake up in about three hours and then your ears will be graced by her complaints. For now, you make your way to the kitchen where you plan to grab a pastry and tea for breakfast. To your surprise, you first see Jade still in her night clothes pacing in a circle. As you step to enter, John is sitting in a chair staring blankly at his hands and King James himself is pacing across the floor of the downstairs foyer. Your plans for breakfast are abandoned and you make yourself known to the royal family, bowing slightly to them as you crossed the threshold.

“My Lord.”

you greet the king. It’s more formal than you typically go for, but right now the electric sense of urgency in the air dips you back into the courtly manners you learned as a child. The king seems to startle as he looks at you. He hangs his head down for a moment before looking at you.

“One of your night patrolmen has found the dead body of a Dersite raven.”

The king's words are solemn and the implications hang heavy in the air. Only the highest nobles and the royal family of Derse can send spy crows or carrier ravens. But, they’re all dead. It’s been what, seven years since Derse’s Civil War? None of them could possibly still be alive. You turn your head towards the king to try and point that out, but he’s already speaking.

“I don’t know how real this is, but we have to treat it as if it’s absolutely legitimate. Send out thirty parties of your guards, we need every single bird of black feather within our borders”

You feel a bit taken aback, you’d have to take almost all the guards off their post to meet his quantity request, and for what? To have your men chase birds? Does the king not see that this is the worst fucking idea he’s ever had? You cross the space between yourself and the king and place a hand on his wrist.

“James, you have to know that this is crazy. I’m fine with allotting a party of fifty men, no more. Don’t you understand that the palace suddenly being unguarded might leave us vulnerable? What if this is some sort of trap?”

Now, the king has always been a kind man, one known to emote, but his stone cold face and his furious eyes are far worse than anything you anticipated.

“I don’t care what you have to do, you will send thirty parties of men as I said and that is an order, Captain Vantas.”

You have a feeling this won’t end well, but with no other choice you bow and softly let out a, “Yes, my lord.” He turns and walks out of the room, and you turn your attention to the neglected Prince and Princess. John looks more confused than anything, but Jade seems nothing short of shocked.

"It's just not possible, right? I was fifteen when Derse fell. There's a few of the low nobility and regular citizens of Derse who managed to escape, some of them even live in Prospit but, there's no way any royals or any high ranking courtiers would be able to get out."

She's right, there's no way that any member of the royal family would be able to get out, right? Right?

"I'm pretty sure your right but, Derse is full of shadows and back passages, someone who knows where they're going could get out easily."

John stands from his chair, turning himself to look at you, he looks upset.

"Karkat, you know that we knew the royals right? Dave and Rose were our friends. Whenever we had diplomatic meetings, we would all abandon our duties and hide out together. There are a lot of passages in castles, especially the ones in Derse."

That certainly changes things, you knew that John and Jade had met Dave and Rose, you had been in the same room as them more than once, but you had no idea the John and presumably, Jade considered themselves close friends of the late Dersite prince and princess. Jade cuts the silence.

"Rose could see the future, you know."

"Yea! I remember her predicting stuff all the time! Like the time one of the scribes spilled ink all over me." John enthusiastically agrees.

"That's ridiculous. Saying that any member of the royal family was a witch is just some stereotype, and it's a bad one at that."

That makes Jade laugh.

"Karkat you sure are certain of the opinions of people you've never spoken to. I never said that the Dersites were witches, they just don't frown upon magic like we do here. Honestly, only a Prospitian would consider 'witch' a genuine insult, after all, Derse never had a witch trial craze."

You suppose that's fair, but the notion that the late Dersite royalty used some sort of dark magic doesn't sit right with you. It makes something in you deeply uncomfortable, especially since John and Jade would consider themselves close friends to their late Derse counterparts. Which means they would know that to be true which means...

Which means that now you'd rather go out and insult your strong and proud guards by having them look for all birds of black feather within Prospitian borders.

You excuse yourself from the foyer and exit out the front gate. You're sure that this will go fantastically, your guards always appreciate when their regular schedules are fucked with and they have to give up their routines. Normally that's just for parades and festivals and the like but today it's because the king lost his mind. The path to the guard house is a simple cobblestone walkway that winds down a hill, it's only a three-minute walk and when you get there your guards have already heard part of what they're indefinitely assigned to do.

"So today we're fowl-finding, huh?" Jeers Vriska.

She's a noblewoman turned your second in command. She's also a real bitch and a half, so you're sure explaining this to her is gonna be fun.

"Not my decision, but the king is off his fucking rocker, so that's what we've been commanded to do."

This doesn't seem to satisfy her.

"James is really asking for this? Does he want to weaken his kingdom's defenses like this? He needs to reevaluate his priorities because being this unfocused is really unbecoming of a leader and he-"

"Alright, Serket. That's enough."

You leave her side and go to point to the map of the territory on the table in the middle of the room.

"We'll divide the kingdom into three parts; Northern sector, Central sector, and Southern sector. I'll take the North with ten parties, Vriska you'll take the Center with ten parties, and perhaps Terezi should take the South with the remaining ten."

You turn to look at Terezi as you're saying that. She turns her head in your direction, and you expect to hear her same "wow Karkat, sending the near-blind lady out on a mission" routine, but she just gives a short nod and turns to gather her sword and her men.

Odd.

Anyway, you finish with the plan at large and go to answer questions that some of the individual guards have. It's mainly about who's in what party, and it's no shock that most of the men would rather go to the South or to the Center, considering you're already in the Center and the South is only about a days march away, but something in you feels that the closer you are to the border with Derse, the better your findings will be. An hour passes as your men get ready to set out. This normally wouldn't take that long, but you tend to have at least one month's notice when it comes to long marches, of course, this is the one major exception. Terezi is the first to set out, you bid her and her company farewell. You doubt they'll find much of anything on the Southern sector, but one can never be too sure. Another half hour passes and then Vriska sets out to patrol the Central sector, and within the next hour you climb onto your horse and are off to the Northern sector. It will take about five days; four if you didn't have to stop and rest your men but that's going to be a necessity. There's a final check that you have one of your underlings do, and then you're off. 

There's something in the air, and it doesn't feel like a lucky day anymore.


	2. testify

     You're only marching for roughly five minutes before the sound of pounding feet that are out of rhythm catch your attention. You pull your reigns back and into a pause and turn your attention to the source of the noise. There before you, stand John and Jade. They've dressed in what’s likely the plainest clothes they own, and they look like they are equal parts terrified, excited, and distraught.

Jade speaks first.

"Now, I know what you're going to say-"

"WHY THE EVERLOVING FUCK ARE YOU TWO HERE?"

"Yeah that's kinda what I expected but you have to listen to us, John and I know Derse better than anyone else here, and you'd need that if you-"

"WE ARE NOT ON THE WAY TO DERSE!" You take in a shaky breath, the last thing your men need to see is you completely going off on the royals. "We are going up to the northern border to look for black feathered birds, we are not crossing into Derse with a small army, I'm not trying to start a fucking war here." Jade has the face of a kicked dog, and if she still wore those little furry dogs ears like she did at thirteen, they'd be downturned right about now. John steps forward and puts his hand on your horse's neck.

"Karkat please, they were our friends. We need to help." John's not usually serious, so him being so earnest makes you a little bit weak.

You sigh,

"Fine. The king knows you're both out here right?" They turn to look at each other, and you've consumed enough media in your life to know that that means the king knows fuck all about them being out with you. You snarl at them because they're fucking morons, but if they wish to foul find then who the fuck are you to stop them. You jerk your head and turn your horse away, if they want to go so bad they can march with everyone else.

The farther north you go, the colder it gets. John periodically runs up to your side to ask stupid questions, "how much longer?" "how much farther?" you decide to just listen to the breath of the wind instead. It's eerie this close to the Derse border, this is the time of year when all the lakes get misty and the thick fog completely erases your field of vision. There's obvious symbolism here, and some of your company take the opportunity to speculate about the reason for the creepy atmosphere. They jumped directly over the logical conclusion of heading due north and being out at the ass crack of dawn in late November. Something something about demons and curses, it’s all nonsense but it’s starting to annoy you.

But at least the day is already almost done, and you come upon the first area where you'll set up camp, its a round clearing in the center of a birch forest with a stream nearby. Two hours before sundown, you allow your men to rest and then set up camp. John and Jade look absolutely haggard, all sweaty and gross with their faces flushed. You turn to them,

"So, how'd you enjoy that? Regretting this yet?" Their responses tell you all you need to know, John just flops down on his back and Jade asks when dinner is. You tell her that dinner will never come and she'll have to starve and go set up your tent. You're hammering the pikes into the ground when a member of your company comes up to you. She's been a member of the guard for years, and she's quite respected. She looks apprehensive, and she begins to speak.

"There's smoke coming from about half a mile away, it could be a large bonfire or it could be a small forest fire. What should we do?" The thought of a forest fire is admittedly scary to you, so is the thought of an unruly bonfire, so there really is only one option.

"Well fuck. Looks like you, me, and a few others should go down to check it out, get some of the extra canteens and fill them, I know the stream reaches that far down but if the fire's out of control we'll want to be able to subdue it immediately." She nods and jogs off, nothing in your life goes right ever, so is the will of the gods. When word spreads through camp, quite a few people volunteer, but you mentally already have a group in mind. You call them together quickly, and you're all about to head out until you are once again flagged down by the prince and princess.

"Where's the fire?" From John, and

"Can we help?" from Jade. There's really no time to object, so you toss them some canteens and tell them to keep up. The fire is not as far as you were originally told, meaning it was spreading fast, or the distance was inaccurate to begin with. Better safe than sorry.

"Pick up the pace everyone. I think this is gonna be more than we bargained for." Everyone went from a quick walk to more of a run after you said that, and within a few minutes you and your group arrive at the scene of the fire. It's really humbling and terrifying to see something so naturally devastating. It makes you hesitate a bit, but the human members of your company just seem to jump forward with reckless abandon. You've spent your whole life coexisting with your human counterparts, but they're still so strange to you at all times.

Right.

Firefighting.

The heat of the fire wafts over you, and the surge of adrenaline causes you to shudder and splash all your water just in front of the fire, because of course you do. Unfortunately, everyone else’s roughly five metric fuck tons of water on a somewhat large fire didn't do much to put it out. You're about to make one person run back to camp to get back up, but then you're splashed with a god awful amount of water once, and then again, and then once a-fucking-gain. The fire may be smoldering, but your temper is ablaze.

You rake your eyes over the scene, and then you spot two unfamiliar women. One is a troll, with long, curly, unruly hair and ram-like horns. She’s wearing a floor-length black dress and a deep red cardigan and had a sheer red scarf thrown haphazardly about her head. The other is human, she’s also wearing a long black dress, but it stuck out in a way the other woman's didn't. It had an odd matteness to it like it was made of velvet. The dress had a high neck and long, full sleeves that tapered at the wrist. She had short, pale white hair that was covered in part by a black kerchief. She had an unsettling eye color for a human, a light purple. The intake of them is jarring enough that your anger fizzles out, and is replaced by an unsettling feeling.

They look like they belong in this misty, eerie forest.

They look so Derse.

You're about to greet them when you hear a loud gasp from behind you. It’s coming from Jade, her eyes are wide and her hands are covering her mouth, she stands like she's been punched in the gut. Following her gaze, she's staring at the human woman. The woman only slightly raises her eyebrows and turns around right after. Jade hurries to your side, gripping your arm like a vice.

"Karkat, that's her!"

"Who? Are we looking for someone?"

"Rose. That's the princess of Derse, Karkat I swear to you I would recognize her anywhere that's her."

"Jade we're not here for this. I'm going to go talk to them about the fire and nothing else." You approach the one remaining woman and introduce yourself. "Hello, my name is Karkat Vantas I'm the captain of the Prospitian royal guard. Do you live in this area?"

"Well hello, Captain, my name is Aradia Megido. I live on the other side of the hill." She seems to just not give a shit about the out of control fire that could've very well engulfed her home. "To what do we owe the honor of your company, Captain?" She says this with an odd little bow.

“Well, it seems like that fire is the only reason we’re crossing paths tonight, can you tell me about it?”

“Ah, I couldn’t tell ya much. Not exactly sure what starting it myself, but I’d put my bets on some of the spirits here.” It’s too late for shit like this.

“I’m sorry, the what here?”

“The spirits!”

You look into her eyes and nope, she’s not even doing you the dignity of joking with you. She’s really actually serious.

“Listen, I’m here for real information, none of this mystic nonsense. Do you know what started the fire or not?” For whatever reason, that gets a giggle out of her.

“I think that maybe, you set the fire!”

“Excuse me? You mean to accuse me of arson? I just tried to help you, that fire would have burnt your home down, and you’re gonna turn around and say that I set the fire? Either me or ghosts? That’s really all you have to say?” She just laughs again.

“You’ll see what I mean eventually, but anyways, I have someone telling me that you’re really out here for other reasons.”

You feel colder all of a sudden. Has your mission been compromised? Does it even matter? That’s when you notice the small red and white frog on Aradia’s shoulder.

“Who told you that?”

“My friends in high places.” She’s like talking to a brick wall, and you think it’s pretty clear that you’re not gonna get much more out of her, so you just decide to give her what she wants.

"We've been sent by the King, there have been some, odd happenings in the capital." That's a bit of a generous description, but she doesn't need to know the ridiculous details. Once the words leave your mouth, she seems to become intrigued. She leans close to your ear and whispers

"If it's odd you're looking for, it's odd I've got, sir." That takes a stranglehold on your attention, mainly because that's such a weird thing to say to another person.

"What do you mean by that?" She gives you a wide smile,

"I'll tell you if I can get you alone." Something about that makes your stomach churn. Perhaps because of everything in your training and experience screams at you that it's a bad idea, but you know she knows something.

You sigh.

"Fine."

Her smile cracks impossibly wider,

“If you’d like to follow me over to my cabin I can offer you some of my expertise.” You call over your shoulder to a few members of your company, asking a senior officer to lead everyone back to camp. You tell her that you’ll follow them back shortly, you hope you’re right. Aradia grabs the front of your cloak and pulls you down the hill towards her home. It’s a small thing, made from dark wood with dark curtains over the windows. There are a lot of plants growing unkempt around the perimeter and crawling up the sides of the walls. It looks like something straight out of spooky folklore. Aradia only speaks once she pulls you up right in front of the door. “Before I bring you in, I need to cleanse you.” You’re about to ask her what the fuck she means when she pulls a small bowl out of nowhere and sticks a finger in, covering it in a clear liquid and then smearing it across your forehead.

“Hey what the hell is that?”

“Oh! It’s just some mint oil, don’t worry about it. I’ve seen some humans have bad reactions to it, but I’ve never seen a troll’s skin be irritated by it, so you should be fine. Also, you can enter now.” She pushes the door open accompanied by the chiming of a bell, pulling you inside along with her.

Inside, there’s a small table in the middle, and surrounding it there are at least fifteen full-length shelves filled with jars and statues and bones and other curios. There’s also a staircase in the back, which only captures your attention once you noticed the same woman in the black dress standing at the bottom, staring directly at you. Aradia notices her at the same time, and doesn’t seem bothered at all by the behavior.

“Rose! Come here, we have a guest!” Rose steps down the one remaining step she’s perched on, and crosses the small space to stand right in front of you.

“Does this guest have a purpose here?” She sounds, less than thrilled that you’re here. Aradia nudges you with her elbow 

“My name is Captain Karkat Vantas, of the Prospitian Royal Guard. I’ve been sent to survey the area in the aftermath of some, strange occurrences. Rose lifts one skeptical eyebrow at that.

“What kind of ‘strange occurrences’ do you mean, Captain?” Aradia has adjusted her position to be right behind Rose, and she’s truly giddy with anticipation. You sigh.

“A few days ago, a dead Dersite raven was found on palace grounds, and there have been other native Derse birds found since.” Rose simply raises her eyebrows at that.

“How many have been found? I mean, birds do migrate south during the winter. It could just be a food shortage.” Aradia sounds disappointed once her completely plausible explanation is said.

“We are almost certain it’s not. If it were that there would be more northern birds, and they wouldn’t be found with messages tied to them.” That last bit was information to be kept under lock and key, you, Vriska, Terezi, the King, and now Rose and Aradia are the only ones who know about it. The information seems to excite Aradia, and stun Rose.

“What did they say?” Rose demands

“I’m unsure. They were transcribed as best as possible but it’s not a tongue I’ve ever seen before.”

You hand Rose a small piece of parchment that was in one of your detachable pockets, she grabs it from you with stunning force and rakes her eyes over it. It’s only two lines long, but she holds the paper for six silent minutes. Eventually, Aradia grabs it from her with no resistance and she reads over it for a while as well. The room is full of absolute silence save for the minute crinkling of paper. You decide to interject with another key bit of information.

“The message was also written in red ink if that holds any significance.” Rose’s head whips towards you so fast that you swear you hear her neck crack.

“What shade of red?”

“A bright true red color.”

Rose brings her hands to her face and she walks to one of the chairs at the dining room table. Aradia seems similarly stunned at the revelation of red ink. All the silence and brooding is infuriating, goddamn Dersites being like this all the time. You clear your throat.

“What’s the big shock here? What do you two know?” Aradia looks between you and Rose for a few seconds before saying,

“Well, we are both native to Derse so it’s just a bit shocking.” It’s a shit explanation, and you tell her as such. After all, you weren't hatched yesterday, their whole being screams DERSE more than magic mirrors and statues that move. You turn your attention back to Rose.

“What do you know about this?” She moves her eyes to lock onto yours,

“I know the scribes Dersite Runic handwriting is atrocious.”

That gets a growl out of you.

“If you know something and you’re not telling me I am going to arrest you. Tell me what you know.”

She takes a pained breath, you notice she’s beginning to tear up.

“It says, ’I will either find a way or make one.’”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s a proverb, one that we grew up with in Derse. It’s meant to emphasize wit, strength, determination, stuff like that that we value in Derse. I think this message was meant for me.”

“What makes you so fucking special that someone would pile up bird corpses just to try to talk to you? Who do you think would go to such lengths to send them in the first place?”

“My brother.”

“You’re telling me your brother is too stupid to write a fucking letter?”

That sets her off. She slams her hands on the table and stands up, looking at you right in the eyes and hissing in your face.

“You don't know shit about my brother.”

“Tell me then. Give me his name.”

“Dave.”

“Full name. And while you’re at it, give me yours too.”

“Fine. His full name is Prince David Elias Strilonde, and mine is Princess Rosalind Lilith Strilonde.”

She’s lying. She has to be lying. They’re all dead.

“Bull-fucking-shit. You are absolutely insane, did you start the fire yourself just to try and fend off your obviously insatiable superiority complex? I bet you did, you fucking delusional liar!” It’s a dumb outburst, but you’re cold, wet, confused, frustrated and you don’t like being lied to.

Rose’s face is scrunched up in indignation and she emits an inhuman growl. Time stands still as she raises one hand in your direction, you’re expecting a strike that never comes. Your skin crawls at the sudden shift of energy in the room, and a jar from the shelf behind you comes flying forward and hits you square in the back of the head. The jar drops, glass shattering on the floor behind you. You reach to your side for one of your sickles but Rose meets you to the punch, with the same magic that knocked over the jar, she holds your wrist with a translucent black fog, pinning it to your side. She narrows her eyes at you. If she were a troll she would be hissing and snarling with the intent to maim you.

“I watched my older brother and sister be executed and haven’t seen my only surviving family member in years, and you dare say that I’m some delusional liar.” Her shadowy arms are still wrapped around your person and she’s still going off.

“Tell me, have you ever watched someone you love be blindfolded, pushed onto their knees, have their head rested on a chopping block and be beheaded? Ever seen how their corpses roll off to the side with hands still twitching? How the blood flows out of their necks and just never stops? Because I watched it happen to my brother and to my sister. My brother and sister who practically raised me, who cared for me in a way that no nursemaid or governess ever could. I fucking wish I was delusional so I wouldn’t have had to live it.”

She sits back down and finally releases her grip on you, burying her head in her hands. You look around the room and see a black cat rushing up to Rose and pushes its round face to hers with a loud purr. Aradia looks to have busied herself with making some tea, only divided in her attention so that she can send you glares. You’re not entirely sure if it’s at all possible to talk your way out of this, but at the very least you will try.

“Royalty are such tragic figures.”

Rose only drags her sharp eyes back over to you.

Strike one.

“I’m sorry that you had to see that.”

She sighs.

“It’s alright. It happened a long time ago.”

“How did you and your brother get away?”

Aradia makes her way back to the table, setting down a cup of tea in front of Rose and taking a seat next to her, Aradia glances in your direction.

“There’s a cup for you over on the stove.” When you don’t immediately stand to retrieve it, she hisses at you. “You should really get up and get that. Take your time.”

You push your chair back and stand up, making your way over to the stove. The tea is darkly brewed with bits of loose leaf floating free in the water. Probably some other bit of mysticism.

“We had to leave under cover of night, Dave and I. We were both very injured from the first attack. Of course, Dirk and Roxy were on their way to Prospit for a diplomatic envoy and had already been captured, there was no one coming to rescue us.”

You pour your sugar and cream into your tea and take a seat again by Rose’s side.

“If you came back to the palace with me, we could help you, we could find Dave.”

Rose sighs and gets up, walking back over to the stove and looking into the pot of tea.

“Looks like it won’t end in disaster. I’ll pack a bag.” She turns and walks up the stairs, not looking at you or Aradia. You turn to look at Aradia, she’s still glaring at you, so you elect to sit in uncomfortable silence until Rose returns. She has one satchel hanging across her middle and a large backpack. She bids farewell to her cat, you find out that his name is Jaspers, and she says her farewell to Aradia as well.

“You’re sure you want to stay here?”

“Someone has to keep this place standing. Go, and if you do find Dave, tell him I finished that crow taxidermy. Be safe, many blessings and whatever. I’ll put the rest of the tea into a thermos for you” Aradia presses a kiss to Rose’s cheek, and goes to retrieve a thermos from a cabinet.

“Are you about ready?” You ask. Rose looks at her bags and around the room, and after being handed her thermos, she gives you an answer.

“I do believe I’m ready.”

“Finally, my company probably thinks I’m dead.”

“That can be arranged.”

“If you’re going to be like that, then maybe you don’t really need the help.”

“I had no idea that the men of the Prospitian military were so easily offended, should I apologize, good sir? Kneel before you and beg to be back in good graces?” There are a few things you've learned about the Dersite Princess in your short time with her thus far, she’s verbose, she’s stubborn, she’s angry, and she is a thorn in your side.

Lady luck has never been on your side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow so uh. a lot of time passed. my bad. i don't plan to have another massive chapter break for the next one, as its already in the works. i'll also be updating "reverberate" which is a precursor to this story very shortly. thank you to everyone who's reading this


	3. distrait

You’re not a fan of the random nobody Captain bursting into your home, throwing your family history in your face and then dragging you off to the Prospitian capital. At the very least, you know you annoy him, and you plan to use that. 

“So Captain, how much farther to your camp?”

“You just asked.”

“And now I’m asking again. So how much farther.”

He sighs at you and shoots a glare your direction,

“Do you only exist to annoy me?”

“As if you’d be the-”

You stop your words short as a sharp, cold pain spreads itself across your body. The world gets even darker and Karkat’s now panicking voice fades from existence.

Ugh. 

You hate it when they do this. 

You open your eyes again, but you’re no longer in the light marshy forests of Prospit.   
You stand in an old style temple, one that you’d read about in ancient grimoires. The room is circular and is made of dark grey stone. You’re on the ground in the center and you try and slowly sit up. Your head is spinning and your eyes can’t focus on anything in the darkness of the room. There’s a voice that booms through you, not the room, just through yourself.

W H E R E A R E Y O U G O I N G?

You sigh. 

“I have to find Dave, I know he’s alive now. No thanks to you.”

T H E R E ‘ S N O N E E D T O F I N D H I M.

Absolutely insufferable fuckers. 

“He’s my brother. There’s nothing you can do to stop me from getting to him.”

H E ‘ S N O T U S E F U L A N Y -

“Enough.”

There’s a tingle going through your skin

Y O U C A N ‘ T S A V E H I M

“ENOUGH!”

The tingle turns into a burn, a manifest of your scathing rage at the words of the Horrorterrors. They could've helped the both of you. There was no need to make you sick, no need to let Dave go on the hunt for medicine, no need to let him be taken from you. No need to leave you all alone.

“I’m done here.”

T H E R E I S M O R E T O S A Y 

“Not at this moment. Let me return to the surface world.”

There were no words after that, just the bagging anxiety deep in your gut that tells you that you just fucked up to an unfathomable degree. You open your eyes and are back in Prospit, layed in a cot, surrounded by strange faces. The first thing that registers with you is the pain. It thrums through your whole body, but it’s most prominent on your communion markings. The anger of the horrorterrors at you for leaving their dwellings on bad terms, the uncertainty of ever finding Dave without their help, the fear of being without your sight again, and the very real possibility that they’re not going to allow you to commune with Dirk and Roxy’s souls anymore. Their mortal deaths were bad enough, losing them again is far to much for you to handle.

Tuning into the real living voices coming from the people beside you, not their voices. These voices are concerned for you, they’re real, they have no alternate motive. You hope so, at least.

“-hear me?”

Oh. Someone’s been talking to you.

“She’s totally out of it.” from who you are pretty sure is Karkat

“Karkat could you clear the room please? I think she’s having trouble focusing.” from a woman you don’t recognize, followed by a very loud,

“YOU HEARD HER! IF YOU’RE NOT ME OR MEDICAL THEN GET OUT.”

Your vision continues to sway as the few others in the tent clear out. You decide to close your eyes and try to just focus on what you could hear, because god knows the last thing you want is to be sucked back into your mind and pulled back down into the Horrorterror’s temple. You hear the woman tut at Karkat, saying that she “didn’t want him to just scream everybody out of the room”, and that he “should’ve just shot a pistol at their feet if he was going to yell that loud.” Despite your best efforts, that mental image makes you not laugh exactly, but does make you exhale air fairly hard through your nose. You hear the woman make a small gasp and she turns her attention back to you. 

“Oh, I apologize. I didn’t realize you were awake. Would you mind telling me how you’re feeling?” 

You open your eyes and see the woman who’s been tending to you and she’s...

Wow. 

She’s a troll, with short, black, waved hair. Her eye’s are a brilliant green and her lips are painted a glossy black. Her tall horns are mismatched, and are partly covered by her white nurses cap, complete with the red cross symbol in the center. Her dress is similar in build to yours, with a high neck and long full sleeves, but her collar, cuffs, and apron were a starched white as opposed to the very light blue and grey pinstripes of the rest of her dress. Her face is positively dripping with sympathy as she reaches up to remove the warm, wet rag from your forehead and she places the back of her hand there for a moment before getting a new warm rag and putting that on your forehead. 

“You’re warming up now, that’s good. How do you feel?”

Your health probably isn’t really improving, this nurse is just really making the whole room a bit warmer. You feel more heat on your face as she just continues to look at you with her soft, bright eyes.

“I feel, much warmer yes. Thank you.”

You smile a very elegant smile at her and she shifts her eyes down to look at your arms, then back up to your eyes. 

“Karkat said he saw you start scratching at your arms before you lost consciousness, would you mind if I looked at them?” 

The warmth fades from you, replaced with something more cold and sharp. 

“I don’t believe that'll be necessary.”

She looks down at your sleeves by your wrists, then at your fingernails. You know what she’s looking at, your nails significantly thinned the fabric on your wrists and the dye from the fabric had stained your fingers. You just don’t want her to see the marks. She seems to pick up on your apprehension.

“I promise I’ll be quick, I just want to make sure that you’re alright.” 

Damn her for being so beautiful and nice and sweet. You turn your left arm to face upwards, and hold the bottom of the sleeve with the tip of your fingers. You carefully slip the button on one side out of its respective loop. You go to undo the second one, but the nurse gently takes your wrist into her hands, and asks,

“May I?” 

You’ve already realized that you can’t say no to her, so you just mutely nod and avert your eyes from her quick working fingers. You just stare up at her face in profile and you catch the exact second she finishes all the buttons and rolls your sleeve up and takes in the sight of your wrist. Her eyes widen and her brows furrough as she traces a finger across the image of the onyx tendril that swirls all the way down your wrist and up to as far as your sleeve can go. It ends right under your collar bone, but she can’t see that yet.   
She just stares at you, turning her head back and forth between your eyes and your arm. Before either of you can say anything, Captain Vantas breaks the silent staredown. 

“What the fuck is that?” 

You honestly forgot he was here.   
The nurse shoots him a short glare and turns back to you. She clearly wants to ask but just can’t find the words. So, you decide to get on with it.

“They’re… cerimonial markings.”

“What fucking ceremony gives you those?”

Comes from the back of the tent.   
You had almost forgotten about the Captain, your nurse looks back at him,

“Karkat go take a walk.” 

He looks affronted.

“Kanaya I’m not leaving you here with her.”

“I don’t believe we’re going to have a problem,” she turns back to look at you,  
“will we?” 

You don’t want to imagine her soft emerald eyes looking at you in anger. 

“No, there won’t be a problem. On my honor.” 

She smiles sweetly at you and turns back around to Karkat.

“See that? No problems here.”

Karkat grumbles a bit and sullenly marches his way out of the tent, giving you a glare over his shoulder at the end. Your nurse, Kanaya was it? Looks back at you. You’ve been doing nothing but staring at her for the past fifteen minutes but all you want to do is stare some more. She takes your hand in hers and looks sympathetically at you.

“Now, I know that you might not want to go into detail at the moment, but it might be best for you if I could know some more about your markings.” 

“Is it alright if I call you Kanaya?” 

The question seems to catch her off guard and her mouth opens and shuts a few times before she responds with a very confused affirmative.   
You feel cold. You can’t think of anything else to put this off. You don’t want her to know. But you also don’t want to scare her. 

“They’re ceremonial, like I said. They’re given to the next in line for the throne of Derse.”

A beat of silence. She just looks away from you and back to your marked wrist.

“Do you have more than just this one?”

“Yes.”

“Where else?”

You wince a bit, they're absolutely everywhere and at this point in your life you can’t stand to look at them. She seems to notice your discomfort and she takes her hand off of yours and folds her hands into herself. 

“I’m sorry I, didn’t mean to upset you. Really, I’m very sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s not like you had anyway to know that.” 

There’s a bit of an uncomfortable silence as she stands and crosses to the other side of the tent. She pulls out a wrap bandage from a bag and heads back towards you. She again takes your exposed wrist and begins to wrap it as far as she can. She pauses and looks back at you.

“Are you going to need a change of clothes? Your dress got quite dirty in your fall, I believe we have some other things for you to wear. I could also bandage any area that you’d, rather not show.”

You hadn’t even noticed how gross your dress had gotten, but she’s right. Your dress has a thick coating of mud around the bottom and the areas you fell, it’s damp and you reek of smoke. 

“Perhaps I should change, if there are any clothes I could use then I would appreciate that.” 

She smiles at you.

“Of course. The only clothes we have on hand are bits of military uniform, I hope you don’t mind.” 

“It’ll do.”

She nods quickly and retrieves another bag from the opposite side of the room. From it she pulls out a pair of dark brown trousers and a white shirt that looks far too big for you, but at least it’s not soaked. Kanaya hands the clothes to you and heads out of the tent to give you some privacy. You dress yourself and wrap your other arm in the bandages and around your neck and the exposed area of your chest under the massive shirt. You sit your old dress in a bundle in the corner of the tent and you head out of the tent into the clearing of the camp. 

The captain is leaning against a tree with Kanaya talking to him. He has that harsh perpetual scowl on his face while he listens to whatever Kanaya is saying while nodding along. Somehow as soon as you step outside he looks you directly in the eye and storms over to you. 

“I’m still willing to help you, but I need you to tell me the whole truth. No more secrets or cryptic bullshit. We need to talk, now.” 

His tone leaves no room for argument, and with the Horrorterros still upset with you and being in the middle of a Prospitian camp with no real direction back to your cabin and Aradia, there’s not much else you can do. This is your chance to find Dave. You have to play your cards right.

“Fine. I’ll meet you in your tent then?” 

He looks surprised, like he thought that he’d need to fight with you some more, which in all fairness, that’s what you really want to do. He nods at you, and beckons you to follow him. You can feel the eyes of basically the whole camp on you. They’re whispering about you too, you can’t hear exactly what they’re saying but apparently John and Jade weren’t able to keep your identity a secret. Some random foot soldier feels compelled to jeer at you,

“In trouble, Princess?”

He has this grin on his face like he thinks he just said the funniest, most clever thing in all of history. Before you even get the chance to respond, Karkat whips around and pins him with a glare. 

“Oh no private, we won’t be having any of that. That goes for all of you, treat our guest with respect, that’s an order.”

The jeering private’s face flushes as his superior publicly scolds him. He gives a weak, “Understood, sir.” Before he turns and goes presumably to bury himself in the ground. Karkat looks back at you and his face softens. 

“I’m sorry for that, my men are good people they really are but they’re getting a bit antsy out here with no information I can give them aside from ‘go chase birds’ something like that won’t happen again, I swear.”

“Apology accepted, Captain. Now, I believe we were headed to your tent to further discuss some matters, yes?”

He again looks like he thought you’d put up more of a fight. As much as you’d like to be a thorn in his side, you need his help to try and find Dave again. The Captain just nods at you again before putting his Serious Matters Face back on. He turns back around and continues to lead you to his tent. When you get there, he pushes the front open and holds it in place for you to enter as well. You take a seat across from him and steady your breathing. 

“So,” you begin, “you want to know more about my past then I presume?”

He nods at you. 

“What I want to know specifically is how you’re even alive. From what we know about the Civil war in Derse, the Rebellion were pretty, efficient.”

“I suppose you could say that, but they lacked a surprising amount of knowledge about Dersite geography.”

“How so?”

“Well, I think it’s best for me to start at the beginning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my god i am,,, so sorry. i had this written for a while but as both me and my beta'er are both trying to graduate highschool rn so we've been totally swamped. i'm sorry that this chapter is p underwhelming and ends on a cliff hanger but my finals are next week and half of the cliffhanger chapter is already written so!!! also i was thinking about having the next bit be a part of reverberate instead of the main fic? lemme know what y'all think anyway i luv u guys and thanks for reading!!!


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